In America, we love a success story. But we distrust too much success. No one today is more successful than Google. So it is no surprise that the US justice department appears to be looking at whether Google has grown too big and successful. The department last week hired Sanford Litvack, a well-known litigator and former head of antitrust under Jimmy Carter, to look into Google’s deal to sell ads on Yahoo’s pages – and, by implication, Google’s dominion over the ad industry.Google is dominant. It controls 87% of searches in the UK and 71% in the US, according to Hitwise. With its acquisition of Doubleclick, it serves 69% of internet ads, according to Attributor, and reaps 24% of online ad revenue, says IDC. Google’s ad revenue grew past ITV’s in 2008 and is expected to surpass that British national newspapers combined. Dominant is the word.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/sep/15/digitalmedia.google